'mobile' Snatchings On The Rise As Cops Turn A Blind Eye

[Spartan]

Bike-borne thieves, who are known to target women walking on deserted roads to snatch their gold chains, seem to have now taken a fancy to high-end mobile phones. Of late the incidents of mobile-snatchings have increased in the city, but only a negligible number of offenders have been nabbed.

The recent assault on DRDO regional director RK Satpathy near Charminar occurred after a juvenile thief attempted to snatch the smart phone of another scientist in the group. The young thief was arrested by Charminar police in April for a similar offence.

While the Charminar incident created a major furore with the police acting swiftly to nab the culprit, many victims find it a herculean task to approach the police and lodge a complaint regarding mobile phone theft.

For instance, Nikunj Kumar Gupta whose iPhone 5C was snatched away by bikers near his house on Dharam Karan road, found himself up against a wall when he approached the SR Nagar police to lodge a complaint. Police at first asked Gupta to write his complaint on a while paper. After he jotted down the details, they asked him to come the next day.

"I went the next day and they said that FIRs cannot be issued for cellphone thefts. When I insisted on meeting senior officers, the constables told me to come later as none of them was available. Subsequently, I met the officers. They asked me if I have insurance for the mobile and when I said no, they refused to issue an FIR. When I asked them to give the same in writing, one officer directed his subordinate to issue an FIR the next day, but the next day the officer was not there and the FIR was not issued," Gupta lamented.

Even after several trips to the police station and pleading his case with different officials, Gupta is yet to get the FIR issued.

In a similar case, after his Samsung Galaxy phone was snatched by a bike-borne thief at Shaikpet, Dinesh Thakur, a business manager at an advertising agency in Banjara Hills, approached the Golconda police, but due to lukewarm response at the police station, he decided against pursuing the matter.

Sources said earlier the practice was to issue just an acknowledgement slip, after jotting down details of the theft in a register at police stations. However, now all station house officers (SHOs) have been directed to register FIRs in mobile theft cases, which is not being duly followed.

When queried, ACP (crime) Sandeep Shandilya said, "Till recently, we had been issuing FIRs only for costly cellphones. On the Hyderabad police commissioner's orders, FIRs will now be issued irrespective of the phone's value if proof of ownership is established."

He said some organised gangs were sending stolen cellphones to other states like Bihar and Maharashtra and selling them there. The gangs were also disposing of the stolen phones in neighbouring countries like Nepal. "When the phone goes to other states, it becomes difficult to track it and nab the offender. If the phone is transported to neighbouring countries, then it is impossible to trace it," Shandilya said.

There are experts in Jagdish market who can reportedly flash (reinstall the operating system) a stolen cell phone with a new IMEI number, which again makes it impossible for law-enforcement agencies to zero in on the offender.

[Maximus]

[ManOnFire]